Lebanese Singer Fadel Shaker Surrenders After 12 Years on the Run

Lebanese singer Fadel Shaker, once one of the Arab world’s most popular balladeers and later a fugitive aligned with hardline cleric Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, surrendered to Lebanese military intelligence after 12 years in hiding.

Judicial and security officials said Shaker gave himself up on Saturday at an entrance to the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon in south Lebanon, where he had been concealed since the June 2013 clashes in Sidon’s Abra district.

Those street battles between Assir’s followers and the Lebanese Army left 18 soldiers dead and became one of the deadliest spillovers of the Syrian war in Lebanon. Shaker, who publicly renounced music around 2012 as he embraced Salafi rhetoric and appeared in videos alongside Assir, was tried in absentia in 2020 and sentenced to 22 years for providing support to a terrorist group.

His handover was coordinated with mediators and the Defense Ministry, and he was taken into custody by army intelligence for transfer to a military tribunal. Officials said his case will now be consolidated under existing judgments and any new charges tied to the Abra violence and related offenses.

The surrender caps a decade marked by periodic audio releases from hiding and contentious public claims about his role in 2013, including footage in which he taunted the military.

Authorities framed the development as part of ongoing efforts to reassert state authority around Sidon and inside refugee camps, while legal proceedings will determine Shaker’s final penalties and any appeals.

Sources: Associated Press; The Guardian; The Washington Post; Gulf News